“No shit, there I was…” So begins Dragon, the eighth book in the Vlad Taltos series. With Dragon, Steven Brust produced two solid Vlad Taltos entries in a row. While Orca was a mystery, Dragon is a war story. Once again, Brust takes us back in time. Chronological order is merely something Brust toys with, a curious plaything. This story takes place after Taltos and before Yendi.
For personal reasons (naturally) Vlad agrees to enlist in an army Morrolan is recruiting for a campaign against a neighbor. Both Morrolan and his opponent are members of the Dragon house, the soldier subtype of the Dragaera.
Brust is, again, entertaining himself with his narrative structure. The chapters begin with the finale of the last battle in the campaign, but within a page or two flashback, creating a running cliffhanger until the last chapter. The first act sets up Vlad’s involvement, the MacGuffin, and the players. The second is Vlad’s introduction to the life of a soldier. I don’t believe Brust ever served (correct me if I am wrong, readers) but he’s certainly been informed about certain aspects. I want to quote one paragraph, and those of you who’ve been in the field, surviving on MREs, might nod understandingly:
“Three hours later we had a fire going and water heating. Aelburr made something called Soldier’s Stew, which involved crumbling a lot of biscuits into boiling water along with the rest of our rations, and molasses, and it should have been disgusting, but he added some basil, mushrooms, toeroot, and nutmeg that he’d picked up somewhere, and the thing was all right; we sang his praises the rest of the day.”
The last act is follows Vlad’s ground pounder-eye view of the war, through marches, encampment, skirmishes, and battles up to the final engagement. Its good stuff.
If you would like to pick up some more good stuff, Raconteur Press just release a new anthology titled Arcane Intelligence. It contains a story by your modest web logger that may or may not be good stuff. Check it out and decide for yourself.
